Investigating the Relative Gas and Small Dust Grain Surface Heights in Protoplanetary Disks
Rich, EA; Teague, R; Monnier, JD; et al.Davies, CL; Bosman, A; Harries, TJ; Calvet, N; Adams, FC; Wilner, D; Zhu, Z
Date: 4 June 2021
Journal
Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society / IOP Publishing
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Dust evolution in protoplanetary disks from small dust grains to pebbles is key to the planet formation
process. The gas in protoplanetary disks should influence the vertical distribution of small dust grains
(∼1 µm) in the disk. Utilizing archival near-infrared polarized light and millimeter observations, we
can measure the scale ...
Dust evolution in protoplanetary disks from small dust grains to pebbles is key to the planet formation
process. The gas in protoplanetary disks should influence the vertical distribution of small dust grains
(∼1 µm) in the disk. Utilizing archival near-infrared polarized light and millimeter observations, we
can measure the scale height and the flare parameter β of the small dust grain scattering surface and
12CO gas emission surface for three protoplanetary disks IM Lup, HD 163296, and HD 97048 (CU Cha).
For two systems, IM Lup and HD 163296, the 12CO gas and small dust grains at small radii from the
star have similar heights but at larger radii (>100 au) the dust grain scattering surface height is lower
than the 12CO gas emission surface height. In the case of HD 97048, the small dust grain scattering
surface has similar heights to the 12CO gas emission surface at all radii. We ran a protoplanetary
disk radiative transfer model of a generic protoplanetary disk with TORUS and showed that there is
no difference between the observed scattering surface and 12CO emission surface. We also performed
analytical modeling of the system and found that gas-to-dust ratios larger than 100 could explain the
observed difference in IM Lup and HD 163296. This is the first direct comparison of observations
of gas and small dust grain heights distribution in protoplanetary disks. Future observations of gas
emission and near-infrared scattered light instruments are needed to look for similar trends in other
protoplanetary disks.
Physics and Astronomy
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
Item views 0
Full item downloads 0